A place to post guides, instructions and HOWTO documents on the use of SharpCap and Astrophotography in general

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I ran the sensor analysis using natural light several times with basically the same results, but not sure if I am doing something wrong. The steps it took in measuring the gain just doesn’t seem right to me. My camera gain is 0-600. Yet in the analysis it only went up to 500 and also in it steps of measuring gain values u can see it went from 0 to 60 to 61 gain and so on... any thoughts on if this is correct or did something mess up? Any feedback would be much appreciated.

it's meant to work that way. The top of the gain measurements are limited to 500 because the maximum gain of 600 is very difficult to measure correctly and useless for deep sky imaging anyway.

The 60/61 is to try to spot if the camera changes mode at that gain level (some ZWO cameras that have Low/High conversion gain settings do). I think some change at 120 too, so I really ought to make it measure at 120 and 121 too. The 1600 sensor does not have the mode change at 60 gain, so you get two points close together - for sensors that do change more the value at gain=61 would have a substantially lower read noise.

Thanks for clarifying that Robin. I’m happy to know it wasn’t an error on my part and the program worked as intended. Sharpcap is a fantastic and I really like the new features. Keep up the great work!

Can I do this using the luminance filter in my filter wheel as this is the clearest filter of the 7 in the wheel? I am uncomfortable with exposing the camera sensor. Any suggestions for the setting selections? Thanks so much.

Yes, this can work with a filter in place providing that you can supply even illumination that doesn't vary during the 'light' parts of the process and cut off the illumination completely during the dark portions.

Do you recommend doing the analysis in mono8 or mono16? The manual recommends the highest bit rate but I don't really plan on mono16 due to the file saved format. Suggestions? Thanks for the help from everyone.

It's usually best to run the sensor analysis in both 8 bit and 16 bit mode. That allow sharpcap to have full knowledge of how the sensor works in both modes and give meaningful recommendations about which mode you should be in for a particular type of imaging.

To be honest though, the usual rules of thumb for which mode to be are almost always correct. That is 8 bit mode for solar, lunar or planetary imaging and the higher bit depth mode when trying deep sky or live stacking.

After some disappointing results with shooting hundreds of frames at 30s and Unity gain (LRGB) I'm going to give Sharpcap a go at imaging. I've only really used the software for the excellent PA routine and a dabble at some planetary. Regarding the Sensor Analysis, does the camera need to be cooled to the same temp I would typically use in the field? ie -15, -20? Camera is as per the OP, ASI1600MM Pro. I have an Artesky flats panel so analysis will be done indoors.

Thanks

Edit: Forgot to ask, does USB speed make a difference? Analysis would be performed with direct connection to the laptop. Under normal imaging circumstances, connection would be through a USB to Cat5 extender.